The central thesis of the book is that in order to evaluate monetary policy, one should have a clear idea about the characteristics and functions of money as it evolved and in its current form. That is to say that without an understanding about how money evolved as a social institution, what it is today, and what is possible to know about monetary phenomena, it is not possible to develop a meaningful ethics for money; or, to put it differently, to find what kind of institutional arrangements may be deemed good money for the kind of society we are in. And without that, one faces severe limitations in offering a normative position about monetary policy. The project is, consequently, an interdisciplinary one. Its main thread is an inquiry of moral philosophy and its foundations, as applied to money, in order to create tools to evaluate public policy in regard to money, banking, and public finance; and the views of different schools on those topics are discussed. The book is organized in parts on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics of money to facilitate the presentation of all the subjects discussed to an educated readership (and not necessarily just one with a background in economics).

This book proposes a “representational” theory of capital according to which there is a relation between capital goods in the real side of the economy and instruments representative of property claims on those goods in the abstract side. Financial instruments are treated herein as a particularly liquid form of property claim. The relation proposed between these two things is a loose rather than a direct one, and the causes for (and consequences of) the looseness are explored in the book. This book aims not merely to simplify our understanding of the relationship between “things” and “claims to things,” but to make explicit and precise what many current researchers assume implicitly and, consequently, imprecisely. This book will be a tool that researchers can apply to their own research, in the form of a standard by which inconsistencies in the literature on Capital Theory can be identified. Understanding what capital is requires delving into its nature on both the real and the abstract sides. In regard to capital goods, what they actually are is made clearer by the thesis that they exist on a spectrum with respect to consumer goods. In going back to the philosophical and economic basics, no claim is made of being comprehensive. The argument is that a crucial idea for our understanding of what capital is that actual capital goods (and processes, and knowledge) are represented in financial instruments and other property claims. A formal treatment that lays out the philosophical and economic basics is necessary to put this idea across, and the model proposed in the book is a first step in that direction. Further, by laying out the philosophical and economic basics of the theory, the book offers the reader the reasons why having a clearer concept of capital is an important tool for wealth creation, and why wealth creation is, more than never, necessary for our individual wellbeing and the flourishing of our civilization.

The central thesis of the book is that in order to evaluate monetary policy, one should have a clear idea about the characteristics and functions of money as it evolved and in its current form. That is to say that without an understanding about how money evolved as a social institution, what it is today, and what is possible to know about monetary phenomena, it is not possible to develop a meaningful ethics for money; or, to put it differently, to find what kind of institutional arrangements may be deemed good money for the kind of society we are in. And without that, one faces severe limitations in offering a normative position about monetary policy. The project is, consequently, an interdisciplinary one. Its main thread is an inquiry of moral philosophy and its foundations, as applied to money, in order to create tools to evaluate public policy in regard to money, banking, and public finance; and the views of different schools on those topics are discussed. The book is organized in parts on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics of money to facilitate the presentation of all the subjects discussed to an educated readership (and not necessarily just one with a background in economics).